Desperately
by mystripedskirt
Summary: Sometimes he gets pieces. CB, JB


Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

* * *

_The collapse of the world on the quietest day  
This time it's the sun standing still  
But holding on hope for something that's good  
I've come now as far as I can go today  
In this vast empty space_

_-Deas Vail "…Still"_

* * *

He didn't grow up with everything, but sometimes he gets pieces.

* * *

Jack is born John Bass, the second of two. From the moment his life begins, he lives in the shadows. He learns to live in the gray area, because the sunlight is reserved for Bart.

Bart – whose given name is Bartholomew – always gets top marks in their small Queens school. Jack scores the goals on their recess soccer team, but Bart is captain. It's the only position that matters, anyway.

* * *

When Jack is seven and Bart is seventeen, their father suddenly passes. Jack's mother takes on a third shift at the diner while Bart quits school in order to feed the family.

It takes two years and sheer luck, but soon Bart begins building an empire that is unrivaled by none. The newspapers call him the next John D. Rockefeller. William Vanderbilt takes notice, honing Bart's skills in order to gain a future ally. Underneath his guidance, Bart acquires building after building, each taking on a different character.

* * *

When Jack is fifteen, he wants to leave school to help his brother, but Bart dismisses him like he is beneath him. He wants to beg because all he wants to do is be like his big brother, but the look in Bart's eyes tells him to stay silent.

Jack stays at the prep school he doesn't feel like he fits in with. It appeases his mother, but his brother doesn't seem to pay attention. How can he, with the world at his fingertips and everyone begging for a share?

He tries cocaine for the first time his sophomore year of high school. Most people started small – with a Percocet, pot, or one of the other Ps – but he is a Bass and the Bass family doesn't do anything small. He rides high on life until one day, that little brunette he is _sort of_ dating has a seizure in the bathroom and collapses in the stall. She is taken to the nearby hospital on Fifth and he promises to never touch blow again.

It's a good thing he's used to lying to himself.

* * *

There is a girl named Melissa. From the moment he sees her, Jack thinks he is in love.

He is trying his hand at college – BC because the sunny hills of USC are too far away for his mother – when he first meets her. He's a freshman and she's a junior, but she doesn't seem to care when he presses his palm into the lower end of her back.

They're not really anything, but during his first weekend back in New York, he eyes her walking down the street with her roommate. Blonde Kristin doesn't hold a candle to Melissa's brilliant chestnut hair. He's captivated and it's terrible, but he thinks he's too far gone to worry anymore anyway.

The girls smile and blush at the sight of him, but nothing unnerves him anymore. Bart's out of town until tomorrow, so Jack invites them for a private party at his new condo on 51st. They accept without hesitation.

* * *

It turns out Bart returns early. At first, he berates Jack for the misuse of his home, but when he sees the girls, he relents.

It happens like it always does. Jack knows he should've known better as he sees the story unfold before him. Bart has no time for girls when he builds an empire – not the ones that matter, anyway – but his eyes seem to do a one eighty when he sees the only girl that Jack has ever cared about.

Melissa is twenty one, she tells Bart. She is from a tiny town in Rhode Island, her twin sister now studies in England, and her childhood nickname was Misty. The last one makes Bart laugh – and Bart never laughs, so this bothers Jack more than it should – and he insists on calling her it from this point forward.

Jack is twenty two when Melissa Addams – Misty, Bart insists – becomes Melissa Bass. It's painful and unnerving, but he thinks he should be used to this by now. Bart already had everything, what was one more thing?

Melissa calls him Charles, but Bart insists on Chuck. The name sticks because no one dares to disagree with the superior Bass.

Whatever his name is, he looks just like Melissa and he haunts Jack's dreams when the woman he still loves dies. Something goes wrong after the delivery and her heart stops in the hospital bed before anybody discovers what is going on.

It's not the first time his heart has broken and it certainly won't be the last.

* * *

Jack decides to disappear. Bass Industries has branches across the globe, but nothing seems quite far enough. He has no ties to New York City – his mother has passed, too – so he shuts his eyes and points to a lone dot on a map.

Sydney works. He could like Australians.

* * *

Jack returns to New York a few times throughout the years, but only on a business basis. Bart lets him run the Australian division of the company, a surprising feat. They're not close, but they never have been. There has been no reason for them to be when Bart shuts himself from the world so well.

Bart shuts himself out for the last time when his limousine gets hit by a cab running a red light. Jack returns one last time for the funeral that is bound to happen. He meets Bart's widow, a charming blonde named Lily. She is does not entrance him, but he is not surprised.

There are other girls running around the apartment she shared with Bart. One is a younger version of her. Jack assumes this is her daughter. She flits through the place with such speed – but no grace – that he barely eyes her, but it is the other girl that catches his eye.

She is small and brunette – and so very young, the conscience he has left reminds him – but so intensely beautiful that he cannot keep his eyes off her. She holds herself like Melissa, face taut and body poised.

Lily introduces her as Blair Waldorf. She is Chuck's ex. At this he laughs, but all he gets are glares. Of course Chuck would find a girl that is exactly like his mother. Never mind the fact that he never knew her. He was inherently Bart, through and through.

* * *

When Chuck disappears, Jack seeks Blair out with a vengeance.

There is Blair, there is Lily, and there is Chuck. He can't handle any of them.

* * *

He's a disappointment to all of them. Only Blair sees completely through him. At first, she lets him in. There is New Year's, there is gin, and there is her beautiful naked body beneath him underneath the Palace's thousand thread count sheets.

Blair is gone before dawn hits and he wakes up alone. He always ends up waking up alone.

Jack spots her on the street, but she doesn't spot him. He's used to lurking in the shadows because he never gets what he wants. He knows he doesn't deserve it, but he still doesn't see how the other Bass men are superior.

There is champagne – and quite a bit more gin – before Blair relentlessly begs him. It's not what he wants to do, but the sound of her voice makes him feel needed, so he calls Andrew to begin searching for his wayward nephew.

He wishes he could say he was on the first plane to Thailand, but he knows himself better than this by now. Lying only gets easier as time goes on. Luckily, he's had a lot of it.

Chuck's a mess, but Jack expects no less. If there was one thing Bass men knew how to do, it was drink. Chuck looks like he's done more than drink, but Jack's never played himself out to be the good uncle anyway.

Jack's not really much of anything, Blair points out, when he finally ushers Chuck back to Manhattan. There are whispers of _something_, but she ignores him like they all ignore him, except the ones that don't matter. He is so sick of the ones that don't matter.

Blair clings to Chuck like he's the golden child, but Jack eyes another boy on the sidewalk on Park. He is tall with bright eyes and he gazes at Blair like he misses her. The next time Jack looks in the mirror, he realizes he looks just like him.

* * *

It takes years, but nothing has changed. There are mistakes – more coke, nameless brunettes, and Lily – but Blair never hits the list. Jack is bitter when Chuck so easily falls back into her good graces, bitter when he sees them together.

He sees the boy on Park again, only this time sliding into a limousine with Chuck. It's practically another lifetime, but this boy is him and Chuck is Bart and they fight for the princess only one man will possess.

It's a Bass right to have her, but he's never been the right Bass anyway.


End file.
